As they look to their first meeting in June, Volusia County Council members and County Manager Jim Dinneen will be eager to put May behind them, a month that brought near-record rainfalls — and a flood of criticism.
It began with a vote to postpone a referendum on a half-cent sales tax that had been in the works for years, prompted in part by the council's resistance to re-examining impact fees paid by developers that hadn't changed in 15 years. That was followed by the resignation of the county's medical examiner, who after about a month on the job sent a letter to the state warning of "potentially dangerous" conditions at Volusia's morgue.
While most of the council appears ready to begin putting both matters behind them at Tuesday's meeting, it isn't exactly clear skies ahead.
A discussion on impact fees raises the potential of pitting developers against voters, some of whom are rankled by the idea that the council's delay on a referendum cost taxpayers some $800,000 if a special election is held next year.
And a report from a third-party expert intended to quell concerns about the medical examiner's office has raised additional questions with the news that the county may wind up hiring the report's author on an interim basis. Sheriff Mike Chitwood and Councilwoman Heather Post have created a stir on social media sites with their outspoken criticism of county management and Dinneen.
Yet a majority of council members seem like they aren't buying too much into the social media grousing.
"Some people are just anti-everything," said County Chair Ed Kelley. "There are people who don’t like Dinneen no matter what we do."
Councilman Fred Lowry offered a similar show of confidence for the manager. "I wish people, before they got on social media or Facebook (to complain) would really investigate what is going on."
But in a series of three Facebook videos, Post, who didn't return calls for this story,called out Dinneen's "deplorable" lack of transparency after she said she couldn't get questions answered about the morgue's operations when she showed up unannounced and without an appointment. In a video posted on Friday, she apologized to the county's outgoing medical examiner, Sara Zydowicz, saying she's "appalled, disgusted and outraged" that county leaders would "vilify" the doctor.
Dinneen didn't return phone calls Friday.
Kelley defended the manager, saying his leadership was on full display after Zydowicz's letter to the state warning of substandard conditions inside the morgue. Kelley said Dinneen reacted the right way by bringing in a third-party expert to tour the facility and assess the validity of the Zydowicz's claims. Dr. Jon Thogmartin reported Thursday that the morgue's conditions "are not critical, dangerous or harmful."
"I feel confident that as a manager he took the right approach in that particular situation," Kelley said. "We all know that people can put anything they want on social media that are not correct and nobody is held accountable for things they say."
Yet the way the county handled that third-party consultant only fueled more backlash on social media. After wrapping the tour and inking his positive report, which called Volusia's morgue "more squared-away" than any he'd encountered, Thogmartin is being offered a job as the county's interim medical examiner to provide forensic services until December. The council will be asked to give Dinneen permission to negotiate a contract worth up to $900,000 for Thogmartin and a staff of other medical examiners to be integrated with Volusia's remaining staff.
Chitwood saw a conflict in hiring the expert brought in to provide an objective evaluation.
"I have nothing against Dr. Thogmartin," he wrote on his Facebook page. "But for the County Manager and County Council to promise the public an 'independent review' of such a crucial department of county government, and then bring in the man you have already hand-picked to run the facility? That strikes me as odd, don't you think?"
Political blogger Mark Barker echoed those concerns.
"The most egregious part of this is that they offered him a job," said Barker, whose blog was viewed by 21,000 people last month. "Whatever his report produces is the best one money can buy. That, to me, is beyond unethical."
Barker added that a common theme he hears from his blog audience, which grows monthly, is that the "county has lost the faith and confidence of their constituents." The medical examiner issue didn't help.
"Why would Dr. Zydowicz put her professional reputation on the line to blow the whistle on this issue when we all know it goes back to 2015?" he said, referring to the year that the county's morgue lost accreditation for similar reasons described in Zydowicz's letter. "I think it’s disastrous for Dinneen and for Ed Kelley to come out and say they were totally unaware of any problems at the medical examiner’s office. That is a bald-faced lie."
Impact fees
Criticism from the public is "something you never get used to," said Joe Yarbrough, who has worked in local government for 43 years. As manager of South Dayona, he worked alongside other city managers for more than a year laying the groundwork for a half-cent sales tax that was poised to appear on a ballot in November. It never made it that far, in part because of the county's inaction over impact fees.
After the council hears a presentation from Thogmartin Tuesday about the morgue, they will discuss what to do about the fees charged by local governments on new development for things like roads, schools, parks and other services. Impact fees are intended to help pay for part of the cost of providing services for the new growth.
Volusia's rates haven't been amended since 2003 even though the cost of construction materials for roads has increased by 74 percent over that time, according to the Federal Highway Administration's National Highway Construction Cost Index.
Those long-stagnated fees cropped up on the public's radar this year as city and county leaders pushed for the higher sales tax. Some residents said they wouldn't support paying more for goods unless the county also asked more from developers.
Fearing a November vote might fail, Yarbrough and other city leaders backed off their push. The county was asked to rework its impact fees before moving forward with a vote.
Yarbrough said council members could have faced a backlash no matter what they decided to do with the development fees. Raising the fees could upset developers and consumers, who may have to pay more for goods or homes. By contrast, keeping rates the same "creates a quality of life issue" for residents who see growth and traffic swell around their neighborhoods without the road infrastructure to keep up.
"Whatever we do, we have to take the politics out of it," said Councilwoman Deb Denys, who's floated the idea of appointing a citizens committee to select a consultant to study what the rates should be. "We need to engage our citizens in the process."
Councilwoman Billie Wheeler said she'd like earlier reports conducted by consultants to be brought to the forefront. For example, a consultant in 2007 found Volusia’s impact fees too low and suggested drastic hikes, by as much as 300 percent in some categories.
"I think we need to have an in-depth discussion, and some of those old reports need to be brought back up," Wheeler said. "We need to have real review of where we are and not just chatter."
Back to the morgue
Wheeler and Denys also toured the morgue ahead of Tuesday's meeting. They arranged a time to visit the facility in advance and both said they didn't experience any problems getting in or receiving answers to questions.
Post told of a different experience when she arrived unannounced at 4:45 p.m. on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend and demanded a tour. In a May 27 video she posted on Facebook and Twitter, she said she had a tough time getting someone to show her around. And there were more problems once she got inside, she said.
Post said she'd asked an unnamed employee how many bodies were stored in the cooler on a typical day. Zydowicz said in her letter the cooler, designed to hold 20 bodies, was "consistently over-capacity" to the point that some decedents were being stored at a hospital for three days. In 2013, when the office performed 23 percent fewer autopsies, her predecessor Marie Herrmann wrote in an annual report of the department that the cooler was at or over-capacity 227 days of the year.
In her video, Post said she was unable to get that information.
"She (the employee) said she was advised to let me in but not to answer any of my questions," Post said, going on to call the "lack of transparency" deplorable.
"This is extremely unacceptable," she added. "I can let you know that I will be looking into the matter more."
Asked earlier in the week about Post's video, Dinneen said he hadn't seen it and wouldn't comment on it. He did, however, refer to her 2010 termination as a deputy under former Sheriff Ben Johnson when an internal affairs investigation found Post had lied under oath, records show.
"I think you all forget her circumstances of why she doesn't work here anymore," Dinneen said.
After the termination, Post filed a wrongful termination lawsuit and received a $44,000 settlement from the county.
Comments 'out of order'
This isn't the first time Post has gone public with criticisms of the county outside of the public meetings where most council members air their concerns, and she's drawn criticism from her peers for going rogue. Since joining the council in January of 2017, Post has been publicly chastised for such things as joining boards without council consent and for missing meetings to attend state functions.
Post first went public with criticism of how the county was running the medical examiner's office at a community meeting she hosted at the Ormond Beach Regional Library.
Neither the staffing issues at the morgue nor the backlog of cases had ever come up in a council meeting, and nobody asked questions in January when the council voted unanimously to terminate the medical examiner's contract with a company that was supposed to implement a data software system.
But at her "Government 101" meeting — attended by eight residents but no representatives from the county — Post brought up concerns about that contract, which she said county management let languish for six years with little action. "There was some sort of misstep somewhere," she said.
Afterwards, council members advised Post that there's an appropriate time and place to confront management about issues. Videos posted on social media aren't the right medium either, Kelley said.
The county chair called Post's videos unacceptable and accused her of getting too involved in day-to-day operations at the morgue, which council members aren't supposed to do.
“I think (the video) was very out of order," Kelley said. "If you reach a point to where what you are doing is interfering with the operation of a county department, I think it’s dangerous."
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